


Perge; sequar

by orphan_account



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Character Study, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 00:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You go; I will follow." (Vergiil's <i>Aeneid,</i> Book IV)</p><p>The world is full of mysteries. Hercules Hansen isn't one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perge; sequar

**Author's Note:**

> The working title for this was "Ogres Are Like Onions." Not accepting a Shrek reference as an appropriate title is, I think, a sign that I've clawed my way into adulthood.
> 
> I wanted this to move into smut, but they just wanted to play amateur psychologists and be sort of snuggly.

Years ago, Stacker had been surprised to realise Herc was the simplest man he knew. Not unintelligent or unfit, just... simple. He is exactly what he looks like: a man who's spent so long wearing so many skins, he's forgotten how to wear his own. God help him for it, but Stacker likes that about him. He likes going back to his quarters and finding Herc already there, waiting on the bed, naked and half asleep. Usually he'll curl up on Stacker's side, head on his pillow, but he wakes up when the lights flicker on, back to the bleary-eyed pilot Stacker used to swear would be the death of him.

Today, though, Stacker made it back first, and from the warmth of the bed, he's watching Herc slowly undress, baring himself one layer at a time.

First to come off is the newest: Striker Eureka (Chuck). Leather jacket with its kill count on the back, flashy boots that clink if they step hard enough- Chuck's idea. A uniform of sorts, Stacker suspects. Chuck and his father against the kaiju. Striker Eureka their force. In the morning, Herc slips into them quickly. The leather snaps at the collar and the metal clinks if the Hansens had a row. If Herc and Stacker had one, which they do often enough, Herc gets dressed in silence. On the rare morning without a fight the day before, only the boots make noise.

At night, he hangs the jacket carefully, tucks his shoes between Stacker's spares and the wall.

Second is Lucky Seven (Scott). Stacker's never sure what Herc means by it, if the vest is a punishment or not. Sometimes he catches Herc curled up with it. He's learned not to wake him- if he must, only with soft touches, softer voice- and not to push when Herc wakes in a foul mood.

Third are Herc's ID tags (the war; every war).

Stacker doesn't ask why half of the chain is weathered but the other nearly unmarked or why Herc slides them behind his neck instead of taking them off.

He doesn't have to.

The last layer is Herc himself. Skin and scars and freckles, his family's legacy spelled out in his body, the one he shares with Scott and passed on to Chuck. Glaring- but that's part of the Hansen charm: they're all larger than life, terrifying, unrelenting, gentlemen. Until they're not.

Strip that layer off, let it be leftovers from the half century Herc's made it through, and underneath, he's only one of the above. Get permission to pull at Herc's last defense, and he's a small man, harmless in the way he sprawls, loose-limbed, across their bed at night, reluctant in the morning when he's faced with the layers he's got to put back on- by no orders but his own. But he's the one Hansen who presents as duty-bound, polite, and manages to be so. Most of the time.

His weak spot's noisy, his regret's obvious, and there are nights only an hour sat on the floor by Stacker's elbow, legs crossed, can shake the last bit of him free of that last layer. It used to be, years ago now, he'd skitter back to their room, ginger hair almost long enough to tug, grinning and leaning in to whisper what he'd planned for the night. It was good.

So's this, though. And Herc's knuckles aren't bloody so often.

The circles under his eyes he's got tonight would have meant a fistfight and a trip to hospital back then. Now, all Stacker has to do is wait until Herc's down to the layer he needs help getting out of, then make his offer.

"I thought I might get a headstart on tomorrow's paperwork."

Herc's smile is crooked, but he settles into his spot by Stacker on the far side of their bed. His head's only just above the bed- a luxury, that, but Stacker has cancer, and damned if he's going to work harder getting out of bed in the morning than he must- and Stacker has to give the urge to tug Herc's hair, which is longer than it's been in a while, a tug the consideration it deserves.

He signs his name on the first requisition form instead. He has the rest of the night to make Herc purr.

* * *

Herc knows himself.

He knows he'd never put on Striker Eureka's get up if it weren't the most he's allowed of his son. That's the state of them, though. Chuck's one concession to being his father's son- he wanted to go to uni and become a vet, last Angela told him, swore never to join the military in a way that made Herc proud- was a box on Herc's bed and a new Kaiju head appearing the morning after a fight, and for all the mistakes Herc's made, pulling on a leather jacket with Kaiju heads on the back  and heavy, shiny boots isn't one of them. He can block out the whispers and the sideways glances just fine.

He straps into his own, robotic deathbed to fight aliens. He's got a dead wife, a fucked up jerk of a son, and those all have their roots in him. So no, a few whispers of  _midlife crisis_  don't bother him. (He's too old for one of those, anyway. He's a fifty year old Jaeger pilot- his twenties were his midlife crisis.)

Lucky Seven's been reduced to a vest, an easy reminder of his first proper Jaeger.

Remember Lucky. Remember Scott.

Remember the laughter the day after his fool brother's discharge.  _Lucky._

There's no going back to a time before the Drift. Herc's got new responsibilities, but they don't include forgetting.

He does his best not to look at his ID discs. It feels excessive, wearing four tags, even silly, but taking off the older set, which he's had for so many years, when he never signed those last papers, feels like lying. Like he's wriggling out of his contract. When this is over, however it gets there, he'll still belong to the RAAF. So the octagon stays with the circle, and they don't leave his skin.

Over the RAAF's claim are the newer, PPDC-issue identification tags.

Herc hates them. They're always cold, even after an afternoon in the Kwoon, and the tiny balls in the chain are constantly catching in his hair- the fine, short hairs at the back of his neck when he hasn't had the chance to shave them off in a while, the little bit of chest hair he actually has. Worst of all, though, is the missing line.

Your religion doesn't matter when you're a pilot, not when you're talking bodies and funerals. Die in a Jaeger, there's never going to be a body to mourn over. In a Kaiju's gullet or a conn-pod, the end is the same. Put your tags between your teeth and lips if you can, and fight to be more than another smear on the ocean floor.

Under the tags is where the real mess is; his body steeped in the clothes and tags, all the mistakes he can't let go of, it's hard to separate who he is from who he was supposed to be. Should be. Have been. The best- only- way to straighten his messy compartments is to let Stacker do what he's always done: look, consider, and give Herc his orders. It's a simple ritual, usually, but it puts most everything back where it belongs. When it's not so simple, Herc trusts Stacker not to lead him wrong, has done since Rank Squadron Leader Pentecost was just an officer telling him where to fly and where he absolutely damn well better not.

Tonight, all Herc can handle is simple, and that's what his orders are.

"I thought I might get a headstart on tomorrow's paperwork," doesn't sound like an order, but at eleven o'clock at night, in the middle of losing a war, Stacker doesn't say much that isn't an order, if you're listening for them. Herc always listens. When he's reporting, when he's in line in the mess hall, when Stacker's Marshal Pentecost and addressing what's left of their troops, Herc's got every aspect of Stacker's voice burned into his memory and waits, ears straining, for a chance to pick them out.

"I thought I might get a headstart on tomorrow's paperwork," doesn't sound like an order, because it isn't. "Get your arse on your mat," is.

Behind him, Stacker's paperwork rustes, pen scratching. Every few minutes, Herc catches something Stacker's muttered under his breath. They're usually mild curses: someone's handwriting is too sloppy, the request is ridiculous or in a language Stacker doesn't understand, the numbers don't add up. It's soothing, the awareness of Stacker and the strain on his knees pulling the memory of the latest embarrassing interview from the front of Herc's mind.

It isn't until he's dozing, falling into something deeper, that the bed creaks. Stacker's legs slide over the edge, heavy thighs coming to rest on Herc's shoulders. His fingers are cold on Herc's closed eyes, but it's a good cold, freezing the headache Herc hadn't even been aware of.

"Better?" Stacker's mustache tickles his ear.

"Mmm. How come you know so much before me?"

"If you'd just looked in the mirror-"

"And what? Miss actually seeing you in bed?" Slumping against the bed, Herc puts his hands on Stacker's ankles, lets his head loll back into Stacker's lap. "Nah, mate."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"'S not ridiculous. If you'd let me move the mirror-"

"Herc-" They've talked about this before, and Stacker's still against it for some reason, "- we are not putting the mirror across from the bed."

"What about above it?"

"Funny. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were serious."

Herc is serious, because he and Stacker won't be growing old together, but he doesn't push, lets the suggestion roll off Stacker's back and join the others. As much as Herc wants to die with as many memories of them together seared into his memory as he can, he's not about to make Stacker look at his scars more than he has to. There's not liking a scar, and there's the kind of anger Stacker's got for the Drivesuit burns. Pilots fight, win, and go down together. Except Stacker.

And Raleigh Becket, but that's another matter.

"Hercules..."

"Time for the fun part, is it?" Herc butts in, opening his eyes so he can wink. He wouldn't interrupt him in any other situation, but the mirror... It's not worth it. Even if Herc would love to watch Stacker sucking marks into his skin, see Stacker's fingers splayed out on Herc's body for himself, Stacker's cock in-

"How are you still this up for it?"

Herc grins, basking in Stacker's disbelief. "You're still a spunk, and I'm-"

"A proper wombat?" Stacker finishes, drawling "wombat" in an accent he'd best return to the Yanks.

Shrugging- when it comes to Stacker, wombat's as apt a word as any- Herc moves to get up, only to get stopped halfway and tugged backwards. He lands on the bed in an undignified jumble of limbs, no time to recover before Stacker's climbing on top of him, lips twitching with a rare smile as he makes himself at home. "Going somewhere, Hercules?"

Herc shakes his head, reaches up to curl his hands around Stacker's shoulders. "Not unless you are, Stacks."

"Good, because I'm not going anywhere."

"Looks like I'm yours for the night, then, aren't I?"

Laughing softly, Stacker noses at Herc's cheek. "You're mine for more than that, mate. "

**Author's Note:**

> No one can convince me Stacker isn't secretly the biggest kind of softie, who enjoys deadpanning bad jokes until Herc's wheezing, sneaking food to Max, and building model aeroplanes. Because his dad and Luna loved them.
> 
> Actual notes:
> 
> There's a post on Tumblr that I can't find to link to about Herc wearing his Lucky Seven vest under his Striker Eureka jacket and what that means about him as a person, and this sort of grew from thinking about that.
> 
> I have to mention Sonora for unintentionally making me even sadder about PR [by pointing out the empty line on Chuck's tags](http://sonora-coneja.tumblr.com/post/74021284966/cardiomyopathic-sonora-coneja-look-what).


End file.
